About Jason Thibeault

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

Don’t Feed The Trolls apparently fed the trolls

I was on a panel at SkepchickCON (the mini-con within CONvergence), about misogynist trolls. Here’s the video, taken by Cristina Rad’s friend and hosted on her Youtube channel. She also posted it at her blog.

You’re a dipshit. Skepcunt over here demands that men ALTER THEMSELVES to suit HERSELF. If men were to do the EXACT same thing, we’d be called ‘oppressors’ and ‘chauvinists’. It’s unbelievably the people are cowardly/emasculated/stupid enough to support this disgusting and hateful movement.

This comment has received too many negative votes [and was therefore hidden until I showed it explicitly]

Reading many of the comments here, and the number of dislikes registered, it’s clear the atheist movement needs a lot of more of these panels. And a lot more women speaking out. Don’t be deterred or silenced by misogynists and other creeps.

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About the author

Hi! I'm a tech guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS and science of all stripes. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

I have opinions. So do you. You want to share them with me. I would like to do likewise. Please don't expect a platform for proselytizing that will go unchecked and unchallenged, though. Contact me via the clicky thingies under my banner.

The commenting rules are simple: don't piss me off. This rule has worked for me for a decade; I have never found a need for any other rule, because any other rules leads to rules-lawyering. Just remember -- this is my property, not yours.

Why, I’m totally surprised that the only reasonable comment there has been downvoted towards oblivion. Must be those #FTBullies suppressing free speech and silencing dissent, huh? After all, 4chan style debate is the optimum method for ensuring all valid points of view are acknowledged and given the respect they deserve.

It’s the Bronze Rule, as I call it. “Do onto others as they would do onto you”.

And then you have the Greedo corollary on top of that. Always Shoot First.

These people, generally speaking really do think there’s a feminist conspiracy to mainstream the idea that all men are worthless pigs and should be treated as such, and that if you don’t agree with them on everything you’re a horrible human being.

So they react and end up treating feminists “in kind”, although we all know how full of shit that is.

Obviously the feminazi Watson needs to shut. She’s belittling women and making them out to be victims by high lighting this behavior. True story. Paula Kirby said so. And isn’t she like totally reliable?

Karmarkin, you can blend the two Bronze & Greedo ideas into “Do unto others before they do unto you.”

I think that’s one of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

I love that this was tweeted by #FTBullies coiner Richard Sanderson as “The people have spoken! A lot of negative feedback regarding ‪#SkepchuckCON‬’s (ironic) panel on internet bullying.” Not seeing that the negative feedback is coming from a fuckton of misogynists, the same crew who pop up any time a woman tries to speak on the Internet. Thus proving the point.

Needless hyperbole gets us nowhere. It’s not “any time a woman tries to speak on the Internet”.

The problem is negative over-generalizations of feminism as a whole, which tends to result in a very negative response whenever the subject comes up. As I said above, to them, it’s an equal and opposite reaction…even though in reality it’s generally nowhere close to equal.

The real problem with dealing with this is that in reality there’s enough justifications of this generalization in order to keep it going. So I’m not sure what the solution is here.

Good stuff. I’m really surprised to see the YouTube like/dislike bar so divided on this one. I guess women’s rights issues is still uncomfortable for some. I’ve stayed away from feminism, for the most part; it seems like there’s always someone around the corner waiting to invalidate any comment I make because I’m male. Like I’m supposed to come to their conclusions without any discussion. Any questioning is quashed. And I don’t like that. I think we need to be open and honest about these issues, talk about why we feel the way we do, rather than flame-torching everyone who doesn’t agree (or may be playing devil’s advocate.)

Well, at least to me, playing devil’s advocate and other similar rhetorical games is the worst kind of trolling. I mean it’s REALLY obnoxious for people to argue things that they REALLY don’t believe (it’s a bit different if people are feeling out intellectual space a bit outside their normal thinking patterns), especially without letting you know up front.

It’s basically stating that ideas don’t mean anything, which I think is bullshit. I used the words rhetorical game on purpose there.

That said, we’re talking about issues here that people “obviously” place a very high moral value on. That yes, you have to support these ideas to be moral on this particular issue. The reason I put this in quotes, is that I do think that the language used (note, I’m not talking about tone and foul language. I’m talking more about content) DOES sometimes give the implication of a higher moral bar than what is intended, and we’re all guilty of that from time to time.

I swear, it’s like some weird Watson Derangement Syndrome; the minute these morons see Rebecca or hear her voice or read her name, they just lose the ability to see any good points being made and it’s all RUINED FOREVER!

This was painful to listen to but at same time a nice demonstration of how feminism works. What do you do if you don’t like what somebody is saying but you don’t have an argument against it? You redefine the words. In the case of “Don’t feed the trolls” they even redefined two words: Troll and feeding.

The other interesting thing was that often when feminists have claimed that somebody wanted to silence them I thought to myself what a bunch of morons. They don’t even know how to silence somebody. Now it turns out that feminists very well know how to silence people. So concerning silencing they are not morons they are liars.

Well, at least to me, playing devil’s advocate and other similar rhetorical games is the worst kind of trolling. I mean it’s REALLY obnoxious for people to argue things that they REALLY don’t believe (it’s a bit different if people are feeling out intellectual space a bit outside their normal thinking patterns), especially without letting you know up front.

I don’t think challenging someone’s point of view is trolling, or at least that wouldn’t be my intention. I want to know what good reasons they have for holding that belief. It might not reflect my personal stance and unless it’s ambiguous I won’t point it out but I don’t see what the problem is discussing it when there is a real purpose: strengthening arguments, thinking skills and keeping an open mind. This is of course assuming that there is actually controversy and not just arguing for the point of arguing. But I guess it just gets on people’s nerves. “Why do you always have to question everything?” comes to mind. Why not? Challenge everything (to a healthy degree).

[SamStrange]: And of course, over at Christina’s, the EXACT SAME video has garnered a sexist troll invasion.

Why not here?

Hmmm…

Although you were probably trying to highlight the gender difference of the authors here, I’m reasonably sure the reason they’re not trolling this thread is that they’ve already been banned. They’re running out of buddies, acquaintances, sock puppets, and proxies to throw at Jason since his patience for them is quite limited.

[…] also done an alternate audio recording from the panel, so if you’re interested in the original take by Cristina Rad’s friend which is uploaded to Youtube presently, but don’t have the tech to hit Youtube at the moment […]

[…] posted the video. (Aside: *Squee* on meeting both of them in person.) Jason posted a bit about the reaction to the video, as well as an audio track for those who can’t hear the video well enough. I got to see […]

[…] is, after all, part of my July routine. What’s novel, though, is that I was on three panels: Don’t Feed the Trolls, Doomsday Scenarios and Growing Up Online. I also continued talking about the harassment policies […]

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